Amazon Pulls Purchased E-Book Copies of 1984 and Animal Farm 645
Oracle Goddess writes "In a story just dripping with irony, Amazon Kindle owners awoke this morning to discover that 1984 and Animal Farm had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for, and thought they owned. Apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by George Orwell from people's Kindles and credited their accounts for the price. Amazon customer service may or may not have responded to queries by stating, 'We've always been at war with Eastasia.'"
Whatever The Party says (Score:5, Funny)
Not Big Brother. (Score:4, Funny)
Big Amazon.
for those of you old enough to have seen the schlock sci-fi "rollerball" it's central theme was that big brotherism actually is more likely to be durable under corporate control rather than government control. A kind of facism where the role of the state is secondary.
I think it was big oil in rollerball. but it could have been big amazon.
plus the idea of a big Amazon woman is somewhat scarier than a big brother.
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Futurama reference: "Death by snoo snoo."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"A little lower and a lot softer" - Zapp Brannigan
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Waitaminute here. If they were that powerful, they could have simply said "screw you" to the publishers. I think you want a more Big Amazon.
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh no.. Watch the movie "Naked Space" [imdb.com] With Leslie Nielsen, Patrick MacNee, and Cinty Williams.
The highlight of the movie is an alien singing "I'm going to eat your face."
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:5, Funny)
I heard a rumour once that there was a remake of Rollerball, but fortunately I was mistaken.
Along with other classic films like The Manchurian Candidate, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Ocean's Eleven, Psycho, The Shining, Death Race 2000 and even the Thunderbirds, I am happy to say that there was never a remake of Rollerball.
La la la la la...
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:4, Funny)
La la la la la...
When I took my daughter to see Iron Man, we got there early and they were playing those stupid slide shows. One was a still from the remake of The Producers and Emma said, "what show is that? that looks funny," and I said to her quietly, "it's The Producers, but if you want to see it that one isn't very good, we'll get the original from Netflix." The guy behind me overheard, and leaned over and said, "oh, my god, you're so right, the original was so much better." There was a mini-cascade of anti-remake sentiment across the theatre.
Fortunately we weren't there for Batman that time.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:5, Insightful)
LOTR.
Seriously - when Ralph Bakshi did that first version in the 70's, it SUCKED.
Re:Not Big Brother. (Score:5, Interesting)
Many of the greatest movies of all time have been remakes. The Magnificent Seven, The Maltese Falcon, Gone With the Wind, and The Thin Red Line all come to mind but I'm sure there are others. The Thing is one of the greatest horror movies of all time and it's a remake. Most horror and sci-fi movies of any quality are at least "influenced" by older movies, and are usually blatant knockoffs.
Some recent remakes have been pretty good but unspectacular: 3:10 to Yuma, Dawn of the Dead, Ocean's Eleven, Disturbia, The Ring, Sweeney Todd.
And then there are movies based on books. The Godfather, All Quiet on the Western Front, Schindler's List, Wizard of Oz, Psycho, Blade Runner, etc. are all based on novels. Movies like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, or Once Upon a Time in the West are technically original, but are more or less the chopped up and reassembled forms of dozens of different movies.
Basically, Hollywood has always done this, and it's always been a mixed bag. Do I wish they would have put more effort and made something better than My Bloody Valentine 3D or Bewitched? Sure, but it's not like they would make another Citizen Kane with that money instead.
Originality is overrated. Quality movies are quality movies, no matter where the idea comes from.
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, let's turn down the rhetoric a couple of notches. There are two aspects to this -
1) This does not appear to be a case where the publisher just "changed their minds." 1984 and Animal Farm are, through the usual idiocy, under copyright in the US but not in other countries, so someone re-publishing the text without paying the copyright licensing is breaking the law, and Kindle customers have, in effect, been sold "stolen" property. (Equivalent: buying software that illegally includes GPL code). If you buy a stolen ipod, it can get confiscated by the police.
2) However, this does reveal a pretty worrying tendency to kill books first, clarify later. If Amazon had just sent out refunds, plus notes that "Due to an oversight, if you are in the U.S., this version of 1984 is unauthorized," that would have seemed sensible.
My suggestion - use the Kindle if you like (I love mine), but backup your books, strip the DRM, and pirate shamelessly. Casual piracy adds features to ebooks - the ability to lend and trade books, which is how we all got hooked in the first place.
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:4, Insightful)
Kindle customers have, in effect, been sold "stolen" property. . . If you buy a stolen ipod, it can get confiscated by the police.
IGNORANCE IS NOT STRENGTH
IDEAS ARE NOT PROPERTY
Taking an iPod from somebody deprives that person of an iPod. Having an extra copy of a book does not take anything from anyone. Purchasing unauthorised copies is neither equivalent to nor even similar to stealing.
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:5, Interesting)
1984 and Animal Farm are, through the usual idiocy, under copyright in the US but not in other countries, so someone re-publishing the text without paying the copyright licensing is breaking the law
It would be legal for an Australian company to print copies of 1984, right? And then it would be legal for me to import that book, right? That's completely legal. How does it become illegal when electrons are involved?
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:5, Interesting)
There's another troubling aspect to this that's yet to be discussed, and one that's especially double-plus-ironic considering that one of the deleted books was Orwell's 1984.
If they can download a book, and if they can delete a book, then they certainly have the capability to REPLACE a book. Imagine that some night thousands of Kindle ebooks disappear and then reappear... altered.
We are at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia...
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:4, Insightful)
You're just noticing this? Online news has been doing this forever.
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand if you actually purchased a book you would still have it.
This is just a VERY good reason to avoid the Kindle.
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:5, Informative)
so therefore the copyright extension is not retroactive to them
Go read the law linked to by the copyright office. The relevant section is below. Short form: 1984 got a second extension of 67 years, instead of 28. So instead of expiring back in 2005, it's expiring circa 2039
(a) Copyrights in Their First Term on January 1, 1978. â"
(1)
(A) Any copyright, in the first term of which is subsisting on January 1, 1978, shall endure for 28 years from the date it was originally secured.
(B) In the case of â"
(i) any posthumous work or of any periodical, cyclopedic, or other composite work upon which the copyright was originally secured by the proprietor thereof, or
(ii) any work copyrighted by a corporate body (otherwise than as assignee or licensee of the individual author) or by an employer for whom such work is made for hire,
the proprietor of such copyright shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for the further term of 67 years.
(C) In the case of any other copyrighted work, including a contribution by an individual author to a periodical or to a cyclopedic or other composite work â"
(i) the author of such work, if the author is still living,
(ii) the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author is not living,
(iii) the author's executors, if such author, widow, widower, or children are not living, or
(iv) the author's next of kin, in the absence of a will of the author, shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for a further term of 67 years.
oblig (Score:3, Funny)
New fourth one (Score:5, Interesting)
Ignorance is strength
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
And the new fourth one:
OWNERSHIP IS DISCRETIONARY
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whatever The Party says (Score:5, Informative)
but these novels are impiratable since their copyright has expired
Hmm....
George Orwell died in 1950. (link [wikipedia.org]), and 1984 was published in 1949.
The copyright law in effect in the US in 1949 allowed for a 28 "first" term, with a possible 28 year extension. (link [wikipedia.org]).
The law was changed in 1976, allowing any published work still in its first-term to be extended another 67 years. Since 1949 + 28 = 1977, Orwell's work was still in its first term, and would not have expired under the original law until 2005 -- or 2053 under the 1976 extension.
AND, the 1998 Sony Bono copyrgiht extension slapped a flat "life + 75 years" deal, which is kinda a moot point but would still push copyright unil at least 2024.
ANNND, any signficiant edits work of 1984 would have created a new derivitive work, with a whole new copyright.
Or in other words--1984 is probably still well covered by copyright, and not technically in the public domain in the United States.
(Yes, you can find a copy on the internet. This is the internet, where you can also find anything and everything for free if you look hard enough.)
(And, yes, I know Orwell was from the UK. I don't know the UK laws, I don't have a good guide for the UK laws, and as far as I know copyright law on the other side of the pond is still a grant given by the king to a publisher so that a particular work gets published.... so 1984 might never get into the public domain at all.)
(Not to mention that if it's not in there now, the "Mickey Mouse" effect might keep it from ever getting there.)
haha (Score:5, Insightful)
fuck kindle. buy real books and support real trees
Re:haha (Score:5, Funny)
If by "support" you mean "dismember and ground up," then yes.
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Buy "FSC", "SFI", "PEFC" or "Green Edition" books. It guarantees that the forests were managed correctly and that the corrugated was recycled humanely.
Re:haha (Score:5, Interesting)
-- Trees are farmed for paper. Magic clicky text here. [tappi.org]
-- Also when you cut trees for lumber, you get chips and waste, which is made into paper, so that argument doesn't stand either.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
[citation needed] [xkcd.com]
Re:haha (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it doesn't work like that. You don't get to sit there being a smug little shit demanding that someone prove themselves without actually doing shit to prove YOUR point.
If your so goddamn certain of your factual correctness why dont YOU bring something to the table contradicting him?
Misplaced indignation. He was neither smug nor demanding that GP prove himself. When someone (GP in this instance) makes such a blanket claim that is clearly simplistic if not entirely wrong ("It's old growth forests that go into books") asking politely (linking to XKCD is not the mortal insult some may think it is *sigh*) for a citation is hardly something to get so worked up over.
Being snippy for no reason is rather bad form and goes a long way toward lowering your credibility.
To GP: I would mod rainforests as -1 overrated (good source for exotic diseases though - keeps the biologists on their toes).
Re:haha (Score:4, Informative)
451 (Score:4, Funny)
I too will stick to my nice, PRINTED books, thank you very much!
Sure you will... until the firemen show up to BURN them!
Er... we're still on the dystopian fiction kick from the article summary, right?
For your convenience (Score:5, Funny)
The Kindle is now equipped with a memory hole.
With DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
You always lose. This is just another example.
Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Informative)
For "$DEITY" sake, don't use, buy or recommend to anyone the Kindle!
It was designed from day one to be enable Amazon to fuck you and this is exactly what happened. I'm not surprised.
An alternative ereader with better hardware, open architecture and NOT defective by design is the iLiad by iRex. Yes, it runs Linux and you can install third-part programs. And, yes, it costs a little more, but if you value your freedom (and your books) it's more than worth it.
Disclaimer: I don't work for iRex, I'm only an happy customer.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Funny)
Error $DEITY undefined.
I'm atheist you insensitive clod.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I'm confused, but I thought the atheists defined it as an empty string, while the agnostics leave it in an undefined state.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Funny)
So then for polytheists, would that be an array?
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that people need to get this right.
The strong atheist says "There is no god / There are no gods."
The weak atheist says "I don't believe in any god(s)."
The strong agnostic says "It is impossible to know anything about the existence of god(s)."
The weak agnostic says "I am uncertain about what to believe."
Strong and weak agnosticism are both compatible with weak atheism and incompatible with strong atheism.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Informative)
Incorrect. Ask any atheist today, or examine the wording, and you'll find it's a lack of affirmation.
The positive affirmation you want it to be would be called antitheism, not atheism.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Funny)
Error $DEITY undefined.
I'm atheist you insensitive clod.
I thought atheists defined $DEITY as localhost.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yea giving people back full refunds after a period of use is an excellent business plan.
Amazon didn't want this to happen it is the publishers fault. If anything you can blame Amazon for not being tough on these publishers, and make contracts that stick. But the evil was in the publisher not the technology provider.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Insightful)
For "$DEITY" sake, don't use, buy or recommend to anyone the Kindle!
It was designed from day one to be enable Amazon to fuck you and this is exactly what happened.
I strongly considered one, but this pushed me back from the brink. The guy whose Kindle account got arbitrarily canceled a while back made me wary, but Amazon at least repented quickly and made it right. This demonstrates that they still truly consider our purchases to be their property. Unless they drastically revise their terms, or someone with reasonable terms starts selling a good reader, I'm'a stick with stupid dead trees.
It's sad that Amazon fucked this up: Ebooks have the potential to be a huge boon to the environment while simultaneously making books cheaper and more convenient to buy.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:4, Interesting)
George Orwell's [mobipocket.com] works do seem to be on mobipocket, which iRex supports.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And amuzingly, I notice from reading the linked Amazon comments, it seems to be the Amazon 'distributed' version of the pocketmobi books that were yanked.
You could have been unintentionally 'right' that they aren't avalaible in the sense that the items I linked may be also 'illegal'.
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Informative)
Not to nitpick, but 1984 and Animal Farm aren't available for the iRex at all. Not legally anyway. And if they are, I will certainly mod you up for linking me to them.
They are legally published by Project Gutenberg Australia [gutenberg.net.au] (see: George Orwell [gutenberg.net.au]). Depending on how sane is copyright law in the country where you live it may be illegal for you to read them, and/or you may be legally allowed to buy a DRMed copy and convert it to a non-DRMed format.
They have control of device (including plain txt) (Score:5, Interesting)
Not if Amazon remotely turns off non-drm files reading. Man, they can actually erase books remotely, they can't turn off a feature?
IMHO, device vendor and software vendor along with content provider should always be separate with lots of options. It is just like buying iPhone and whining on slashdot about how evil Apple is for not allowing this or that.
Kindle is really something like "amazon owns you, your device, your reading habits, your location".
Erasing 1984 alone is amazing. Perhaps someone really wanted to show what Kindle is and released it illegally on purpose. If it is the case, I am really impressed. It doesn't have to be a "freedom fighter", it could be some amazon rival proxying etc.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not to nitpick, but 1984 and Animal Farm aren't available for the iRex at all. Not legally anyway. And if they are, I will certainly mod you up for linking me to them.
Hmmmm.... and how exactly are you going to do that? You know, you can't moderate in this discussion because you commented on it... Doh?
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Informative)
The key to dealing with DRM is to make sure you are aware that the media is encumbered before you decide to buy and to factor the DRM into the purchase (for instance, most people that know about and understand the DRM used on DVDs purchase them anyway), not to avoid any and all hardware that supports playing that media.
I see two problems here: first, most people don't know that Amazon can remotely delete or change their books at any time (yes, they can even change the contents of your books after you have purchased them; the Kindle it's a censor wet dream).
Second I don't have any problem with hardware or software that allows me to read/listen/watch DRMed formats (e.g.: mplayer allows me to watch DVDs, that ok). What I don't like is when my computers/devices obey someone not me (e.g.: my hardware DVD player don't allow me to skip that stupid FBI bullshit).
Re:Stay away from the Kindle! (Score:5, Interesting)
yes, they can even change the contents of your books after you have purchased them; the Kindle it's a censor wet dream).
that leads to some interesting profit models, such as: "For a $5 charge, Dumbledore will live through the next chapter. Otherwise HE WILL DIE. Make your choice."
Legally, how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legally, how? (Score:5, Insightful)
This happens all the time (the Major Leage Baseball deletions, Microsoft's older DRM, etc). The difference here is that Amazon was generous enough to refund the price; usually the company just keeps it because "all sales are final".
Personally I think they should be banned from using the word sale; indefinite rental is more accurate.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"All sales are final" makes me think that they couldn't do this. If the sale is final, then how can the negate it!?
Re:Legally, how? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because you paid money for access to DRM-protected content. You didn't buy shit. It's their device (you paid money for the use of it), their content (you pay a fee to get to view it). At no time did they actually give you anything.
It's just like a DVD. What are you paying $20 for? Is it for the right to view the content? If it were, then you should be able to get a cheap replacement when the disc fails, right? Well if it's not that, then you paid for the copy of the movie, I suppose? But then, why can't you make a copy?
Pay money for DRM'd content and you'll get exactly what they want to give you - smoke and mirrors.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/tech/news/article_1289226.php/AACS_revokes_released_HD-DVD_and_Blu-ray_keys [monstersandcritics.com]
Re:Legally, how? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, all product recalls are strictly voluntary.
You're dumb if you don't participate in a recall, though, because you /are/ compensated or given a safer/better-working/improved product in return.
This is not a recall.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Stop calling them toys -- they're my friends!
Re:Legally, how? (Score:5, Insightful)
The relevant part:
Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon.
They contradict themselves with the use of "permanent copy" and "will be deemed licensed to you". If you read that last line, it doesn't even make sense. "It will be deemed licensed to you unless otherwise provided by Amazon"? That's poor grammar at best. I think what they mean to say is, "You get the license unless we take it back," but that's not what they've written.
Regardless, whether to force someone to sell you something is legal under their "terms of service", it's bad business. As this story grows, I can see e-bay piling up with Kindles.
Re:Legally, how? (Score:4, Insightful)
As this story grows, I can see e-bay piling up with Kindles.
I think you greatly overestimate the overlap between 1984 fans and Kindle users. Most (if not all) people unaffected will ignore this in a "...and then they came for me" type of ignorance.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hard to sell items deemed to have no value. I guess you could still use it as a PDF viewer, but who's to say Amazon will decide that's against your EULA at some later point and do daily wipes of your PDF folder? I guess you could manually disable the antenna with some wire cutters, or convert it into a Very Expensive SD Reader. I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in this turn of events.
I was looking (rather seriously looking) at using my bonus t
Re:Legally, how? (Score:5, Informative)
Except it's NOT in the license. Quoted here in case it mysteriously changes:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530&#content [amazon.com]
The author has been dead for 60 years! (Score:5, Insightful)
How can there still be a copyright on this?
No wait - politicans of course.
But more to the point SHOULD there be a copyright on something from that long ago?
And if someone says it is public domain, how can they not only sell it but also deny people right to use it?
Re:The author has been dead for 60 years! (Score:5, Insightful)
In the US, you can thank Disney for copyrights being extended to death of author plus seventy years. Orwell died in 1950. For corporate authorship, it is 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier
Re:The author has been dead for 60 years! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The author has been dead for 60 years! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The author has been dead for 60 years! (Score:4, Interesting)
Why does an author need copyright protecttion after he's dead? For the benefit of his family? Sorry, I don't remember seeing anything that says copyright is supposed to be a welfare system for author's families.
Re:The author has been dead for 60 years! (Score:4, Interesting)
Why does an author need copyright protecttion after he's dead?
Perhaps to delay the author's death?
For example, there are probably a number of publishers and movie studios who would consider the price of a hit man just a minor business expense, if the death of J.K.Rowling would put all the Harry Potter stories in the Public Domain.
(If you think this is facetious or a troll, do a bit of reading on how the "free market" in non-Soviet Russian has worked for the past couple of decades. Businessmen there routinely surround themselves with bodyguards when out in public.)
Class Action Lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, oh, please, Kindle owners sue! This would make for an interesting case. If the property in question were concrete like a lawn mower that I purchased at Home Depot, HD decides they want it back so they pull it from my back yard but credit my account isn't that still theft? I'm dying to see what is made of this.
I can see Amazon no longer allowing it to be purchased for download but actively pulling content that has already been purchased and downloaded sounds criminal.
Re:Class Action Lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the property in question were concrete like a lawn mower that I purchased at Home Depot, HD decides they want it back so they pull it from my back yard but credit my account isn't that still theft?
In this case it seems that Amazon didn't actually have the rights they needed to sell it to you in the first place. A better analogy would be if you bought a used car, then the dealership came back to you and said, "it turns out the car we sold you was stolen, and we had no right to sell it to you in the first place. Here's your money back." Yeah, that would suck, but I don't see any alternative (under the current legal regime).
If Amazon sold the product without having had the rights to it in the first place, and they don't recall it in this way, they're liable to be sued by the copyright owners. It's not (apparently) a matter of them arbitrarily deciding that the value had gone up and changing their minds.
Re:Class Action Lawsuit? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's important to note that in your analogy, the alternative to giving back the money for the stolen car is to just take the car and not give you the money. That could actually happen.
In this case, could that happen as well? Yes, I think it could.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, that's pretty much Amazon's problem, now isn't it.
Look up First Sale Doctrine, but more importantly, Holder In Due Course. If you had no reason to believe the transaction was encumbered, then you're not liable for anything the seller did.
And a Reasonable Man wouldn't expect bad behaviour from Amazon...
Re:Class Action Lawsuit? (Score:4, Informative)
If you had no reason to believe the transaction was encumbered, then you're not liable for anything the seller did.
If you had no reason to believe the goods were stolen, you won't wind up in jail either, but you'll still have to give the goods back. The legitimate holder's rights come first. This principle is particularly important when it comes to copyright, because otherwise a single infringing copier could effectively negate an entire copyright, while not having anything close to the resources to fairly compensate the legitimate copyright holder for the resulting damage.
Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free? (Score:5, Informative)
Who would buy a book from a publisher and sales person who think it's okay to sell you DRM crap and then take it away on a whim when you can get those exact same books legally, and for free?
Animal Farm: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011.txt [gutenberg.net.au]
1984: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt [gutenberg.net.au]
Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free (Score:5, Informative)
when you can get those exact same books legally
That's great if you're kicking it in the Outback or somewhere else sane, but here in the States 1984 it is still under copyright (I assume using the simple heuristic that it was created after Steam Boat Willie) and so probably not actually legal.
Re:Why Buy it When you Can Get it Legally for Free (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a safe bet that they'll extend copyright again just as Mickey Mouse is looking like public domain.
You guys in the US won't have a public domain to speak of in a few years.. it'll all be owned by the great grandchildren of once famous authors - the new ruling elite.
Stick with dead tree editions.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Forced to download edits to books (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Forced to download edits to books (Score:5, Interesting)
Better yet, imagine this:
The year is 1984 in a dystopian future, in a repressive, totalitarian state. Historical facts and documents have been rewritten and revised so many times that even the correct year is uncertain. Posters of the ruling Party's leader, "Amazon", bearing the caption AMAZON IS WATCHING YOU, dominate the city landscapes, while two-way Kindles (the e-book reader) which dominate the "private" and public spaces of the populace are being re-written at Amazon's will to change facts, censor illegal words or to delete/burn ebooks that get in the way of its propaganda...
We called it the "Library of Alexandria" problem. (Score:4, Interesting)
Back on the Xanadu project we called the single-server model for content the "Library of Alexandria" problem: A disaster wiping out the server (and its backups), like the burning of the Library of Alexandria when, for many works, it contained the only (or or one of very few) copies, permanently removes the documents served by that repository from the literature. (The solution is the "multiple record" - mass printing of dead-tree books prior to automation, broad distribution of the immutable content and versioning information in the case of an "electronic literature".)
Of course centralized and mutable serving of content also enables, and greatly simplifies, the "rewriting of history" described by Orwell in the two books in question. So it is particularly ironic that these are the ones that were pulled.
I'm sure this is contractually okay (Score:4, Interesting)
The fine print in the EULA probably allows for this, but this is certainly not in the spirit of good and normal commerce and is probably actionable under several state laws and possibly even federal laws.
I have to wonder if this "retraction" of books isn't merely an irony, but an action taken to call attention to certain issues?
Amazon's new product (Score:5, Insightful)
Your books are now 'unbooks'. They don't exist. They never existed.
suckers (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, it's one thing to be a Luddite, and quite another to stay with reliable, cheap, and fully functional technologies until the newer alternatives truly surpass them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You could always just download an "illicit" copy, and read it for free... IMO (but YMMV) you have a moral right to do so if you have purchased the dead tree edition in readable condition.
Please (Score:3)
Vote with your wallets. *Do not buy kindles*.
If you own one and are sickened by this, sell it second-hand for 4/5 of the price. This, more than anything, will hurt Amazon. Let them know why you're reselling/refusing to buy, too.
Stupid stupid stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm amazed at this. Not that some company wanted them to do it; but that Amazon did it. All comments about "big, evil corporations" aside - are they trying to kill the Kindle? Don't they see what a PR nightmare this could be?
Why on earth should I buy an expensive electronic book reader from them, EVER, when they've just demonstrated that I might have my legally-purchased books deleted at any time?
Never! (Score:5, Insightful)
only pirates win (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were one of the customers who had my book deleted, then I would feel entitled--even compelled--to download a DRM-free copy from the internet.
Score 1 to Stallman (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html [gnu.org]
Once again Slashdot posts stupid headlines. (Score:5, Informative)
I think Amazon did the right thing and according to their official response [amazon.com]:
Amazon Kindle Customer Service says:
"These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future, books will not be removed from customers' devices in these circumstances."
Digital Smoke Screen (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a pretty amazing story. In the Digital Age a distributor fells that they are allowed to invade an electronic device that you own, steal a copy of digital media that you own and force you to accept a refund for something that YOU own.
Let's imagine this happened thirty years ago, or even ten years ago for that matter. A book store sells a book to you and for whatever the publisher decides they don't want to sell the book to you and must have it back. The publisher must now trespass onto your property, break into your house, steal your book, leave a cash refund on your table and then leave your property without any one noticing just to get the book back. A crime has now been committed; namely trespassing, breaking and entering and theft.
Both of these scenarios are exactly the same, except that in today's scenario the book is in a DIGITAL format, which for some magical reason means that a publisher can trespass onto your property and steal something that you own.
In what other context, except the digital context, would behavior like this be tolerated or acceptable, and not to mention legal?
in newspeak (Score:5, Funny)
All hail Big Brother.
RS
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Um... NO!
If I buy something, and it's recalled (obviously we're not talking about food or other perishables) it's mine. It's been sold. Except where it's stolen or other specific cases, it can't be reposessed from me. A book that was printed without permission? Cops aren't coming to my door to get it back. It's mine. The problem, and why it's absolutely NOT ok is that with DRM and remote kill options you can take it back, which by some views is or should be completely illegal.
There are so many vague l
Re:All Geeks Unite (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you read "Animal Farm?" If you have, you would know that the power of the people to unite against the power of corporations has long been extinct.
You know what's going to happen? A small but vocal minority will heavily protest and boycott Amazon and the Kindle, while the vast majority of mindless consumers will continue to purchase their goods. Amazon could not possibly care less about this. As a large corporate entity they make money hand over fist. Eventually, if the Kindle becomes sufficiently popular and achieves critical mass, people will simply accept the ability to remotely revoke your ownership rights as part of the normal terms of usage of the device.
ï
The exact same thing happens in Animal Farm. The government, which in actuality is ruled by a privileged elite, leverages the power of propaganda to exploit the worker class under the guise of improving the collective good. Dissent is not tolerated and mercilessly suppressed until the people simply accept the injustice as the reality of life. What the American public has largely failed to grasp is that Orwell's allegory of the dangers of communism is not a specific condemnation of this particular political ideology, but rather, of the dangers of an imbalanced power structure and a malleable, uneducated society. The modern-day corporation has supplanted the role of the communist elite. They are the true puppet masters in today's Western capitalist systems. We have quite vividly observed this phenomenon in the US government's reaction to the past year's economic debacle.
What many people do not realize is that the game is already lost. Americans do not live in a democratic society founded upon the principles of liberty and justice, but an illusion of one, much in the same way that the proletariat class lived under Communism. The average American consumer is as much brainwashed as your typical North Korean.
Re:All Geeks Unite (Score:4, Insightful)
As a case in point. Go all the way back to the early '70s and suggest to any adult you find that in just a little over a decade their insurance company will have the authority to tell them to change doctors at will and that people will accept that. Just listen to them laugh at you and call the loony bin (on a conveniently located payphone).